ShB spoilers

So I've talked a few times about how, on a meta level, one of the focuses of ShB was getting people who hadn't deeply connected to the Scions to do so (and to give people who already loved the Scions a chance to hang out with them)

And I was thinking back and I think that part of this decision was rooted in looking at the differences in people's reactions to various things at the end of ARR

People were ready to riot over Nanamo

They weren't worried particularly about the Scions

(I mean and then Minfilia WAS dead, but that was a pretty even split between "no my perfect angel" and "eh")

Agreed on all counts. I think the rush to fix things with 2.0 meant a lot of characterisation in the early story got sacrificed. Necessary at the time but definitely it’s weakest point now.

that was one thing that I really missed in hw and sb, the scions, I was worried that they were getting slowly separated to remove them

so having them come back and be such big parts of the shb experience really made me happy

They've always done well at having the twins in the forefront but it's really nice to have yshtola, thancred and urianger back, as well as minfillia 2.0.

I wasn't at all worried about the Scions in 2.55 simply because they had pretty thick plot armor, whereas Nanamo is not only a slightly less important character...and given what had happened to her at the time.... yeah

Which is still a slight complaint I have about the Scions, I'm never too worried about their well being that SE would actually kill any of them... and of the two characters they made you think might be dead in ShB, Y'shtola is XIV's flagship character, and Thancred is the only trust tank

I don't feel like it's actually a bad thing not to be worried about the scions

Maybe meta knowledge makes tense scenes with them less scary but i don't find that a detraction. On the contrary feeling like at least certain charactera are pretty damn safe is a relief

It's definitely not, that's why it's only a minor complaint

but it does make those scenes sort of a little less impactful... :|

But I'm also of the opinion that if you have to use fear of characters dying at any time all GOT style not only is that bad story telling it'll exhaust viewer/ reader/ player empathy and keep people from investing deeply

Well i like the focus being on things other than "oh no are they going to die" aside from the one scene with yshtola all the other tense scene with the scions were focused on other tension this time.

Which feels like a big step forward and evolution in story telling from the just "oh no is someone gonna die" because there was enough other emotional stakes all through the expac. Like obviously meta wise we were NEVER going to become a sin eater but the emotional tension was still high the whole time

there was still a continued element of failure, and consequences of that, which i think will still affect us going forward. and it was nice to see people who were our companions realise just how much we were sacrificing and no longer sure they wanted us to foot that cost

Hm, I should (belatedly, I'm at work) explain that I meant more from an emotional investment pov as well.

I was going to say - but again, work - that I feel like the overwhelming response to Haurchefant's death seemed to catch them by surprise.

Not that it wasn't what they wanted but the level of intensity was clearly beyond what they expected.

And I don't doubt that Papalymo's sacrifice was already planned (well, that SB was already planned) but I think they sat back to reexamine how to strengthen character bonds with NPCs, because what they had done in HW clearly worked.

They had things plotted out for the future, but they resolved that a focus of ShB would be bonding with your Party

And it went amazingly well